OTP Bank Romania doubles Q1 profit on higher income, lower costs

Hungarian banking group OTP said on Friday the consolidated adjusted after-tax profit of its Romanian unit doubled year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017, reaching 1.3 billion Hungarian forints ($3.95 million/3.64 million euro).

OTP Bank Romania's net profit grew considerably in the first quarter, compared to the 616 million forints profit in the corresponding period of last year, mainly due to higher total income and lower operating costs, OTP said.

Total income grew 3% on the year to 7.15 billion forints, while operating costs dropped 14% to 4.21 billion forints, as a result of stringent cost control.

Total net interest income grew by 3% to 5.33 billion forints, due to the impact of the Swiss franc mortgage conversion, which resulted in lower margins.

Total risk costs increased by 18% on the year to 1.06 billion forints, influenced both by higher provisions for possible loan lossesand other provisions.

The bank's gross loan portfolio adjusted for FX changes totalled 520 billion forints in the first quarter of 2017, as both the corporate book and the retail portfolio stagnated. Customer deposits edged up 1% on the year to 325.2 billion forints.

OTP Bank Romania's capital adequacy ratio was 16.3% at end-March 2017 on a standalone basis under Basel III regulations, up 1.9 percentage points compared to end-2016 and well above the regulatory requirement of 10%.

The bank's total assets decreased 3.0% on the year to 588 billion HUF at end-March.

OTP Bank Romania had a network of 100 branches and 1,126 employees at end-March.

At the beginning of 2016, OTP Bank Romania acquired Millennium Bank from Portugal's Banco Comercial Portugues for 39 million euro ($43.7 million). Following the deal, it became the 11th biggest Romanian bank in terms of assets with a 2% market share.